Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday December 21, 2012 @11:35AM
from the here's-a-dollar-poke-someone-who-cares dept.

Spy Handler writes "According to PC Mag, 'Facebook is testing a feature that will let select users pay $1 to send messages to people with whom they have no connection on the social network. The $1 fee will open a thread with a non-Facebook friend. If that person replies to your note, you won't have to pay again to respond to them.' Facebook explained the test thus: 'Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful. This test is designed to address situations where neither social nor algorithmic signals are sufficient. For example, if you want to send a message to someone you heard speak at an event but are not friends with, or if you want to message someone about a job opportunity, you can use this feature to reach their Inbox. For the receiver, this test allows them to hear from people who have an important message to send them.'"

Seems to me that I should be able to let anybody contact me and I can opt in to people being charged a dollar to contact me. I don't want to make long lost friends pay to send me a message but I can see how some people might appreciate this. Also, Facebook isn't doing anything worth $1 to get this money and it's an (in)convenience fee so this money should go to a charity or something, right?

So what if people seem to want to message me and are willing to pay for it. At least Apple lets me keep a small percentage of the money they make on giving someone a copy of a song I have for sale on iTunes. Facebook wants 100% of the profits for themselves? I don't see this business model work if they aren't paying most of the money to the people receiving the messages.

It could create a popular alternative way to support artists, coders, whoever and so be even more profitable for Facebook (e.g. many more may actually use it).

For example artists can sign up formally with Facebook (so that they can get paid more easily) and Facebook takes a 30% cut (like Apple does for their stuff). Then the hordes of fans can easily send them money.

One problem with that could be money laundering (depending on the implementation).

The other problem is Facebook's system might not be suitable for financial transactions. Duplicated/failed comments/messages/status updates aren't a big problem. But duplicated money transfers could be:). This is probably solvable though.

I am honestly surprised the recipient doesn't get a cut of this. And it would certainly lead to some interesting new spam magnet strategies; perhaps you could entice paid spam by spec'ing out options on a new Lexus at their website, for example.

In fact, part of this change is that Facebook will no longer let you share your contact info with only people who already know someone you've friended. More and more Facebook is dropping the "social" and becoming just another personal web page host site. Welcome back Geocities!

Of course, they can't actually explain where they met you and why they want to be friends anymore without paying Facebook money to allow you to message them. Facebook removed messages from friends requests.

They "deserve" it because it is their service and someone is willing to pay.

Seriously, though the word "deserve" doesn't belong in financial discussions where there are willing parties on both ends. I make four times as much as a social worker. Do I "deserve" more than my overworked sister-in-law who works with troubled youth? No. But I do. The fact is that my skill set is valued by the market more than hers. Sad fact of life. Tiger Woods makes eleventy-billion times what I do. For hitting a damn white ball with a stick. does he 'deserve' more than me? Nope. Sad fact of life.

If some idiot is willing to pay $1 to Facebook, then Facebook deserves that $1 and the guy paying it deserves to be $1 poorer.

They "deserve" it because it is their service and someone is willing to pay.

So if someone sends a helpful message to strangers offering to lengthen their pelvic protrusions, or induce mammary hyperplasia, Facebook gets laid... er paid? Very sound business strategy, I should say.

It isn't even so much as they deserve anything. They are offering a service that lets you message people you are not friends with. Now, they could offer that service for free, but that would allow for all kinds of abuse and would result in their service being flooded with spam. The idea is to set a price point high enough that makes the ROI too low for spammers, yet keep the price low enough that people are still willing to use the service. Since it is their service and they have to impose a fine on val

If I were, then there would be an option where I could choose to opt-in or opt-out.

you opt-out by not using facebook.

that comment just strengthens the OPs statements. facebook isn't an entitlement. it's a commercial service that you can choose to use, or not. you don't need it to live or even need it to be comfortable in life.

As much as I am not a fan of Facebook (or on it at all), they run the hardware and wrote the software. You were the one willing to sign up to be their product and agree to their contract. Any right you had to complain already got clicked away.

They do not, of course. It's all about the money. If they truly wanted to punish spammers, it would be a system more like this:

1. You pay $1 to send message to someone with no connection on your social network.

2. If that someone acknowledges that the message as legit (sender may be a long lost friend, or maybe a polite non-spam email), then you get $1 refunded, so it would not have cost you anything. Essentially, you go out on a limb with $1 to reach that person and let that person judge if you had bothered/spammed them.

3. If the recipient does not do anything, or even marks the message as spam, then the sender would lose that $1, and the $1 goes to the recipient, as he is being compensated for having to deal with spammers.

Because for some reason, they are the only ones who've been able to build up a lasting social network. They certainly weren't the only ones to try, or even the first ones, but somehow they succeeded in a field full of competition.

Seems to me that I should be able to let anybody contact me and I can opt in to people being charged a dollar to contact me. I don't want to make long lost friends pay to send me a message but I can see how some people might appreciate this.

Easy, you do it the old way. You send a friend request first and if they accept, you two can message all you want for free. Your long-lost buddy can go and send you a friend request first.

This service is only for two random people who aren't on each other's friend lists

Facebook deserves this money, because they went out and got 900M+ users to sign up for their service. Just the same as NBC deserves advertising dollars because they get people to tune into the television shows they produce.

Why would you think that Facebook is any different? They aren't in the "we run this massive no-cost website for people to shoot the shit on for fun" business. They are in the advertising business.

I had a former co-worker a few years back that was looking for a new job. I found the perfect job for him and sent it to him via facebook.

Facebook gave me the ability to find his contact information via the town he was living in, his name, his profile picture, and some mutual friends. I was then able to start a conversation with him and have a few messages back and forth. Neither of us wanted the relationship to move beyond a few polite messages, and I probably would not have gon

Facebook's problem is that my LinkedIn world and my Facebook world will forever remain separate. Furthermore, anyone who links their personal life and their work life is asking for a whole lot of trouble (yes, my LI and FB handles are different). I know that Facebook is looking to justify their $40 IPO, but this is just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping against all odds that it sticks.

The suggestion was to charge a tenth of a penny per email. For regular folks who email, that works up to less than a penny per day. (No fees for business emails from private or hosted exchange servers, of course.) This would discourage spam emails and mass marketings from public accounts (although it wouldn't stop spam from zombie email accounts on private domains.)

A dollar per message should be enough to discourage irresponsible spamming.

The suggestion was to charge a tenth of a penny per email. For regular folks who email, that works up to less than a penny per day. (No fees for business emails from private or hosted exchange servers, of course.) This would discourage spam emails and mass marketings from public accounts (although it wouldn't stop spam from zombie email accounts on private domains.)

Unsolicited SMS messages cost money and are illegal: spammers still use them.Unsolicited paper mail costs money (much more than a tenth of a penny): spammers still use it.

How exactly is charging for sending email going to stop spam before the cost is high enough to have a significant detrimental effect on the rest of us too?

The suggestion was to charge a tenth of a penny per email. For regular folks who email, that works up to less than a penny per day. (No fees for business emails from private or hosted exchange servers, of course.) This would discourage spam emails and mass marketings from public accounts (although it wouldn't stop spam from zombie email accounts on private domains.)

A dollar per message should be enough to discourage irresponsible spamming.

A dollar per message is a lot cheaper than paying for printing and postage on bulk mail junk mail, even with the discounted bulk postage rate.

If a business isn't using a private email solution, they're doing it wrong. Doesn't matter if it's internal Exchange, private Google Apps, MailChimp lists, or some solution from a hosted ISP. A business that's using a generic Hotmail account to send stuff to their customers deserves to be charged for spamming, since they're abusing a public service that was never intended for business use.

That is not what I am talking about.I am speaking of a business sending wanted information to customers or contractors who supplied their own email accounts that might well be hotmail or yahoo. The company in this case is using its own email servers to send those, but the recipients do not have accounts with them.

That's a quick way to get your email address blacklisted by ISPs. We had to wrestle with one of our clients who had such a 300+ person mailing list, and they wouldn't listen when we warned them that they were going to get their IP address blacklisted... Sure enough, that happened, and spawned a two month saga of trying to get a new, clean static IP address. We finally had to put a hard cap of 50 recipients inside Exchange to get them to quit it.

If I can already send message to most people I'm not connected to, as long as they dont have their profile set super secret mode....this does almost nothing. So I can only assume then that the main point of this "feature" is that it WILL go to those super secret ultra private profiles, thus invalidating the settings and desires of said person.

Actually, that's a great idea. I'd set my "send me a personal PM even if I don't know you" cost at twenty bucks. If someone is willing to give FB twenty dollars to get in touch with me, they might actually be someone I want to talk with.

I realise they make money through ads but I suspect that won't last so they're seemingly looking for anyway to milk people. Sure it'll stop bulk spam but $1 is nothing to get your chance to be a total creep to some strange woman. On the bright side if creeping goes on that should kill FB.

I realise they make money through ads but I suspect that won't last so they're seemingly looking for anyway to milk people. Sure it'll stop bulk spam but $1 is nothing to get your chance to be a total creep to some strange woman. On the bright side if creeping goes on that should kill FB.

$1 is pretty cheap considering how much bulk mailers pay for printing and postage to send you stuff via snail mail.

"Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful."

I hope there's a way to block this. For example, the following $1 message comes to mind:

"Hi, I'm the one who was sent to prison due to your testimony about me repeatedly beating your daughter while she lived with me. I just wanted to let you know that I've been released and am thinking of you. Much love!"

On the surface this announcement sounds like Facebook is providing a beneficial feature to keep strangers from sending you messages which I didn't know was a widespread problem.

I guess it sounds better than Facebook announcing that they are selling access to your inbox for a $1 to solicitors who don't need or can't afford the the high-volume advertising service. I'm sure they will eventually provide volume discounts.

Think about it... who will want or need to pay that dollar to send you a message?

$1 per initial message might seem like a deterrent but with a good result set from data mining various sources a company could establish a viable subset of facebook users likely to be swayed by subsequent promotional offers. Just takes a hook to gather a response from the first message so that additional messages can be sent free, like - respond to this so that your name is entered into a free draw to win Product X. If it's well targeted it'll pay for itself in the long term.

I expect spammers to start using stolen credit cards to send spam. In the end it will cost the CC owners and their banks money while FB most likely gets to keep the money. Depends if the banks force a charge back or not. Sometimes they do and sometimes they write it off and wait fro the government to give them money.

I love this idea. I don't mind you selling the ability to contact me at all; don't listen to these other internet clowns. Now, I can't guarantee I'll read each and every message, but I will look at their subject lines. A glance, that's all I can promise. Is this okay? Great. Great. I am loving this. Will you deposit the $1 into my bank account every time I get a message, or once a month like eBay does?

I suspect this feature will be used mostly by advertisers. If $10,000 gets you 10,000 messages to strangers who will be notified of it and probably read at least part of the message, that is a pretty good deal. I doubt most people will bother with it, preferring to just send a friend request. This set up is ideal for mass spam campaigns.

1) Get a facebook app on the service that...2)... posts to N "holding" accounts"...3)... which message back (negating the $1 fee)...4)... whose message gets eaten by the app.

you then have N accounts you can sell to spammers, with no charges leveled due to previous communication. The person who tried the app doesn't get clued in because of the lack of charges and lack of messages.

Mind, this is being posited by someone entirely ignorant of the facebook environment. Maybe it can't be done. Would you be